Reed Anthony, Cowman eBook

were freely indulged in, I encouraged and widened
the breach between the rival crews. The outfits
under my direction had accumulated a large supply of
saddle and sleeping blankets procured from the Indians,
gaudy in color, manufactured in sizes for papoose,
squaw, and buck. These goods were of the finest
quality, but during the annual festivals of the tribe
Lo’s hunger for gambling induced him to part,
for a mere song, with the blanket that the paternal
government intended should shelter him during the
storms of winter. Every man in my outfits owned
from six to ten blankets, and the Eagle Chief lads
rechristened the others, including myself, with the
most odious of Indian names. In return, we refused
to visit or eat at their wagons, claiming that they
lived slovenly and were lousy. The latter had
an educated Scotchman with them, McDougle by name,
the ranch bookkeeper, who always went into town in
advance to order cars. McDougle had a weakness
for the cup, and on one occasion he fell into the
hands of my men, who humored his failing, marching
him through the streets, saloons, and hotels shouting
at the top of his voice, “Hunter, Anthony & Company
are going to ship!” The expression became a
byword among the citizens of the town, and every reappearance
of McDougle was accepted as a herald that our outfits
from the Eagle Chief were coming in with cattle.

A special meeting of the stockholders was called at
Washington that fall, which all the Western members
attended. Reports were submitted by the secretary-treasurer
and myself, the executive committee made several suggestions,
the proposition, to pay a dividend was overwhelmingly
voted down, and a further increase of the capital stock
was urged by the Eastern contingent. I sounded
a note of warning, called attention to the single
cloud on the horizon, which was the enmity that we
had engendered in a clique of army followers in and
around Fort Reno. These men had in the past, were
even then, collecting toll from every other holder
of cattle on the Cheyenne and Arapahoe reservation.
That this coterie of usurpers hated the new company
and me personally was a well-known fact, while its
influence was proving much stronger than at first
anticipated, and I cheerfully admitted the same to
the stockholders assembled. The Eastern mind,
living under established conditions, could hardly realize
the chaotic state of affairs in the West, with its
vicious morals, and any attempt to levy tribute in
the form of blackmail was repudiated by the stockholders
in assembly. Major Hunter understood my position
and delicately suggested coming to terms with the
company’s avowed enemies as the only feasible
solution of the impending trouble. To further
enlarge our holdings of cattle and leased range, he
urged, would be throwing down the gauntlet in defiance
of the clique of army attaches. Evidently no
one took us seriously, and instead, ringing resolutions
passed, enlarging the capital stock by another million,
with instructions to increase our leases accordingly.